Researcher Asheda Dwyer On Chile, Garvey and Rastafari.

One of the benefits of attending an event like the AfroLatiino Festival in New York City is the cultural learning experience. In 2015 Afrofusion TV got a new lesson on Garifuna communities in the African Diaspora. This time around we ran into a young researcher, Asheda Dwyer, who let us in on the work she’s doing on Garvey, Chile and Rastafari, and the afrodescendant communities that are still fighting for recognition there. Turns out that Chile has one of the fastest growing Rastafari populations in the world. Dwyer, who is based in Toronto, Canada, is intent on exploring and doing further research on the roots of the Pan-African movement happening in Chile. The northern port city of Arica, the area in Chile with the greatest number of African descendants, had around 8,500 Afro-Chileans at last count by the National Institute of Statistics (INE). However,

Asheda Dwyer, Toronto Based researcher working on the Afro-Chile Project

the government of Chile has refused to recognize people of African descent as a distinct ethnic group. It is a similar struggle that afrodescendientes have faced in Latin America and beyond – fighting for visibility and the basic acknowledgement of their existence in society. Check out our interview with Asheda Dwyer above and let us know what you know and/or think about this topic. For more information on the work she is doing with the Afro-Chile project, check out their Instagram, @aseoaseoaseo.